Later I stood against the bathroom door and studied her. Our sheet covered her to her waist; she was bare above. Her hands were linked behind her head, her hair splayed on the pillow. The spaces beneath her arms were dark. I couldn't see her eyes.
"You do believe me, don't you, Geoffrey?"
I shook my head.
"I swear!"
"You swore to me before."
She looked up at the ceiling.
"That was in Key West."
For a moment I didn't know what she was talking about. Then I thought I did.
"Oh, I get it. Everything you said down there was false. But that doesn't matter because Key West is-what? A liar's paradise? Is that what you want to say?"
She didn't answer, just continued staring at the ceiling. I watched her awhile longer, waiting for her to speak. When she didn't, I broke the silence.
"I take pictures of you. We talk, sleep together, make love. But for all of that, after all these weeks, I have no idea who you are."
She shrugged.
"I'm just a girl you met who got you shooting people again."
"Yeah. An ordinary girl."
"Go ahead, mock me. But I want you to know-"
"What?"
"Know me, Geoffrey."
Ilaughed.
"What's the matter?"
"Everything," I said.
We'd left New York the day she burned down the building, traveling under assumed names. I'd flown to Dallas on one airline, she to St. Louis on another. We'd each spent the night in our respective city of transit, then continued to Albuquerque, where we'd met that morning at the airport. We'd rented a car, eaten lunch at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory, then had driven up to Santa Fe.
Frank had been adamant: the three of us must not be seen together. So Kim and I had cruised Cerrillos Road looking for a suitable motel. We chose the Seek And Ye Shall Find because of its pink-and-white facade, and because the name appealed to Kim-it was, she said, pretty much the story of her life.
What was that life? What had she been seeking? And what had she managed to find? What was she seeking now from me? That's what I wanted to know.
She'd told me so many different stories I couldn't keep them straight.
At least one of them, I figured, had to be true. But then, I thought, that might not necessarily be the case. Perhaps all of them were lies, I was thinking about that, and what I was going to do about her, when finally she began to speak, in a strange emphatic way I'd never heard her use before.
"She thought up the whole thing, brought me into it. Then, when the crunch came, she chickened out. Maybe she thought Darling would find out she was the blackmailer. Maybe he accused her, so she had to give him proof that he was wrong. Whatever the reason, she switched sides.
Didn't say anything, just switched. One day I was her dear accomplice, next I was good as dead. She sold me out to save her ass. Only reason she let me get away was she knew I'd tell Darling the whole rotten scheme was hers."
"Yeah, Kim. But the bottom line is she didn't kill you, did she?"
She shook her head furiously.
"She would have! She lured Shadow to be killed. That was the night I ran to you. And you were there for me, Geoffrey! You were the only one I could trust. Now, isn't it funny? You don't trust me at all. Even now, now, while I'm telling you the real truth, you don't believe a word I say. Not a solitary word."
"Is there a difference?" I asked. She stared at me confused. "Between the truth and the 'real truth'-is that a distinction I should know about?"
"All you do is mock me, Geoffrey."
"Want me to feel sorry for you?"
"That's not what I want!"
"What do you want?" "I want you to believe me! I want you to love me!"
I retreated back into the bathroom, sat down on the edge of the tub. Oh, Christ, I thought. Jesus Christ!
Later, sitting in the motel-room easy chair, feet stretched out on the matching ottoman, I tried to get her story straight. Kim faced me, attentive, straight-backed and cross-legged on the bed, her perfect bared breasts thrust forward, harbingers that she would speak the naked truth.
"Now, let's see if I've got this right," I said.
"First, Mrs. Z doublecrossed Darling." She nodded.,,Then the two of you set up Rakoubian."
She nodded again.
"Then he got the idea on his own to make me look like the blackmail photographer."
"So far you've got it right."
"Then Mrs. Z got scared and double-crossed you. She lured in Shadow and turned her over to Darling. Under torture, Shadow inadvertently pinpointed me. So they came after me, thinking I'd taken the photographs."
"Couldn't tell it better myself."
"Meantime, after you and I got back together, you decided to take revenge. But before you got around to it Rakoubian was killed, because you told Mrs. Z he was the real blackmail photographer."
She shook her head.
"She already knew that. It was Darling who didn't know. You told him when you ambushed him on the street."
"So I signed Rakoubian's death warrant-is that what you think?"
She thought about it for a moment.
"I suppose you did… in a sense."
Yeah. In a sense.
"Which brings us," I said, "to the night before last, when you slipped out after I fell asleep. was it your idea you were going to send Mrs. Z a message?"
"Not send her a message, Geoffrey. She was going to be,the message." 'You went there to burn her?"
She looked appalled.
"Absolutely not! All I wanted to do was turn her around, make her see things our way. Also I wanted my extortion confession back. It was a loose end. I didn't feel comfortable with it floating around. "
"And then?"
"Like I told you-things got out of hand."
"Out of hand! You're incredible! You burn an old lady to death, and you talk about it like it was just some freak accident or something, like you were at a dinner party and by mistake you spilled some wine on the damask!" Her eyes closed down to slits.
"Old lady! That's what you think she was? She was evil, Geoffrey-totally evil. She was a witch. You've got to burn a witch!"
She told me what happened. When she called Mrs. Z, after she discovered Rakoubian had been killed, her old acting coach begged to see her. That morning the cops had come around asking about Sonya, and a little while later Darling had called her in a rage. My ambush had gotten to him; he wasn't used to being on the receiving end.
Then the Duquaynes called, and they were the final straw. Everything was falling apart.
So Kim told her, sure, they could probably work something out, she'd stop by to see her later on. She didn't say when, just suggested Mrs. Z leave the key to her back door beneath a garbage can in the alley, and sometime in the night she'd drop in.
"I woke up around three o'clock. You were snoring away." She smiled.
"Guess all our lovemaking wore you out. You looked adorable in your sleep. Adorable…" She giggled.
"Anyway, I got up, dressed, taxied downtown, found the key, crept in and took the elevator up. She was waiting for me in her bedroom. I sat down on the bed and we talked.
'You double-crossed me,' I told her calmly. 'The whole thing was your idea, then you sold me out." 'But I had to, my dear,' she said. 'You don't know Arnold. He's ruthless when he's angry. It was me or you. I chose myself. You would have done the same."
"She wasn't humble or scared the way she'd been on the phone. No, she was haughty and arrogant. She said the time had come for the two of us to make peace, and that we could still do a deal if I was interested.
She said Darling was furious because of what you'd done to him that morning. All his fury was now focused on you, Geoffrey. You! There was only one way I could set things right, and that was to betray you. If I did that the slate would be clean. Darling would relent. I'd be off the hook." She glanced at me.